A few weeks back I suggested to a coworker that I fix her up with a nice guy I know. She was all for it, thought he sounded really great, until I told her his name. He happens to have the same first name as her ex-husband, and she would not even think about dating him. I thought she was being sort of petty.
Now I’m corresponding with a guy from a personals site, and he just shared his first name…the same as my ex-husband. And now I’m wondering if this would be too weird for me, too!
So…has anyone out there dated someone with the same first name as their ex, and how did it go? Does the weirdness factor wear off?
I’d say, be fortunate you are straight. How about the strange situation with gay people when they date someone with their own first name? A David dating another David. A Lisa dating another Lisa.
No, I don’t think it would be strange. I’d find it more difficult if the new person was a relative or friend of the ex.
I have made it a rule to never date anyone with the same name as closely related females in my family, no matter how cute they are. Sometimes even variants get weird.
Given there’s only about five men’s names in current rotation – it was a bit weird the day I realized that four of the five people I was ccing an email to were named Bob – it seems inevitable.
Of course, I do have both a brother and a BIL named Don – so although I dated a guy named Don for a while, there was no way that relationship was going to get serious.
The weirdest name-coincidence in my life was when I dated a man who had the same name as a guy who had raped me many decades earlier. :eek:
I do mean the same name: both the first name and the last name. It was an odd situation, but this fellow was totally unrelated to the bad dude from my past, and I certainly couldn’t hold his name against him.
Both me and my eldest sister married/are about to marry guys with our brother’s name. It’s more confusing than it sounds because my brother goes by his middle name because we have an uncle with the same first name. So, my sister married a guy with my brother’s middle name, and I’m engaged to a guy with my brother and uncle’s first name. Phew! Of course, my brother goes and gets engaged to a woman who has a name totally dissimilar to any of his 3 sisters’ names. He’s ruining the trend!
As far as the OP goes, I think it might be a little weird at first, but if the guy is cool enough, it won’t matter so much. At least I assume so.
First fiance was named Mark. He was abusive and a bitch.
Second fiance was named Mark. He was just a bitch (though I’ve heard the argument that he was mentally abusive, and I suppose he was, but after that first Mark I have a harder time calling anything less “abusive”).
Third fiance, not named Mark* - we got married. He is neither abusive, nor is he a bitch. It’s different. I like it.
Yeah, me too, though it got substantially less weird after the sixth month or so. I don’t think of my dad as his first name anyway, so it’s probably not as weird as someone whose same-named people were on the same “level.”
But would I date another person with that name? I wouldn’t not date them, but it would be a minor hurdle. I’m already always going to be comparing my future partners to my first important (and so far only) relationship. The name confusion will just make it that much harder to realize that a new partner is an individual human being.
I have the same name as my SO’s ex-wife. It doesn’t seem to bother him…it’s kind of weird for me when he talks about her…particularly as he differentials by refering to her as My First Name His Last Initial. Hey! I want to be Mrs. My First Name His Last Initial! I mean…I think I do. That is I…well…
So yes it gets a little weird.
He also happens to have the same name as my father. Which might be weird had I ever met my father. Or maybe that makes it weirder. Not sure.
My son’s girlfriend of over a year now has the same name as my mother. It’s not a terribly uncommon name, but it’s not a very common name, either. They are, in fact, the only 2 people I have ever *personally * known with the name.
Whenever I speak to my mother and she asks how my kids are doing, she also asks the same question, in the exact same way - "How are [my son] and that girl doing? Always ‘that girl.’ I actually asked her once why she doesn’t just say her name, since she obviously knows it, and she said “I can’t! It’s just too weird!”
As far as the OP goes, I’ve never dated someone with an ex’s name, but I don’t think it would be a problem for me.
Bah. If it gets serious and you just can’t handle his name, consistently call him by a pet name.
Actually, if you start with the pet name early enough, he might just save you the effort of dumping him later. Try it! “Hello, snootchy-wootchy fluffikins!”
…
Seriously though, my first two boyfriends both had the same name. Dated the first one 4 years, the second one almost 2 years, and it never struck me as particularly weird. The lack of imagination showed by his parents in naming him is no reflection on the guy himself, after all.
My dear friend Betty is married to a man whose first wife was also named Betty. Because of the children from the first marriage, my Betty has had lots of dealings with ex-Betty. Fortunately, she (my Betty) is very cool about the whole thing, and she and her sweetie hold similar opinions of ex-Betty, so there are obviously no major issues there. And since the children are now married with children of their own, the meetings of the Bettys are rare.
I also notice if you type Betty often enough, it starts to look nonsensical…
Now that I contemplate this, I realize that my own brother doesn’t seem to have a problem being married to a woman who has the same first name as mine, though hers is spelled slightly different, and we usually refer to her by the formal variant, which is spelled the same. The only people who seemed to get confused were people in my church when I moved back to town. His wife didn’t take his last name, but older folks in church assumed she would have. And I moved away after getting married, so my new last name didn’t register with them…when they saw me they thought of me by my maiden name…same last name as brother. SO…they knew he’d married a girl named X. They assumed she’d be Mrs. XY. When they saw me (after many years away) the antique brains registered XY, and if they saw the two of us together, that reinforced it. Add to that the fact that they knew his wife was pregnant, and I was heavy at the time…that explains why so many people came up to us standing together talking after church and patted my belly and asked how much longer and what names had we picked out! If she had been there, hanging on his arm, they might have realized, but it ended up being more embarassing for them than for us, when I had to tell them I wasn’t pregnant and this man is my brother.
And my sister married a man with the same first name as our uncle, his son, his grandson…good thing we’re not close! At family functions it’s already confusing enough with Joe, Joey, Little Joey…
Not only dating, I am living with and almost engaged to a guy with the same name as my spineless ex fiance. It was REALLY WEIRD at first, but at least I’m not in danger of saying the wrong name in bed or something.
She was really cute.
